


Laughing With a Mouth of Blood

by docboredom



Category: TWRP | Tupper Ware Remix Party (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Light Angst, M/M, Mentions of Blood, based off true events (of course), dumb ass bit his tongue and it's described a lil in detail, light lore building, like how else do you tag that?, minor alcohol mention, minor drug mention, minor mouth horror, show shenanigans, twrpclub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 04:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20790440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/docboredom/pseuds/docboredom
Summary: He had done this a hundred times. A thousand times. A million more. A quick breath inward, snake the tongue, tube in the mouth, teeth down.-In which Sung does what he always does and fucks up without meaning to, and Phobos has some thoughts on it.





	Laughing With a Mouth of Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Neither Hide Nor Hair](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15457713) by [docboredom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/docboredom/pseuds/docboredom). 

> sometimes i spin shit off the top of my head in the span of a week and just run with it cos fuck it i dont know

He had done this a hundred times. A thousand times. A million more. A quick breath inward, snake the tongue, tube in the mouth, teeth down.

Commandeering the talkbox was something Doctor Sung had learned to master quite beautifully over the past few years of touring here on Earth, and now it was something like breathing, like sleeping, easy and natural. What hadn’t necessarily been mastered yet and made easy, made natural, were the new lyrics he and Phobos had come up in a time that seemed like forever ago but really was just a year. Not even a year, fully. More like handfuls of days scattered between months and weeks of groove crusading and traveling the cosmos, sometimes written with pen and paper, sometimes spoken into palms, like secrets yet to be released to the universe, cradled carefully between the two of them. These were the things that had to be sung out loud now as he stood under the burning stage lights, his brain trying to remind him to move his body as well in tandem with them; Inhale-exhale, cock your hip, step-step-slide,  _ sing _ .

This wasn’t anything like star singing, which was both boundless and certain within him. This was the limitations of his mortal body, the stunted capabilities of human technology, the fact that this was Earth and they couldn’t be their true selves here, that they were on a whole different playing field. It helped though that it was a small crowd, an easy crowd, made up of the best hospitality the Midwest had to offer; turned fuzzy by local ciders and beers, weed smoked around corners when no one was watching, eager and ready for them. It was some hole in the wall venue that they had come to two years ago almost on the dot, and while it was completely the same in it’s smallness, it’s dustiness, it’s tiredness and warmth, they themselves were so, so different, and it didn’t feel the same at all.

A hundred times. A thousand times. A million more. Meouch’s digits slip-tapping across the strings of his bass to the right, Havve’s entire being a drum from behind, which left Phobos, at his left… More deranged top than guitarist in that moment, laughing wildly into the mouthpiece of his helmet as joy exploded out of him, spinning on and on. This was one of Sung’s most favorite differences since the last time they had been here, since they had met so long ago. Seeing Phobos grow and flourish under the spotlight, becoming more and more animated with each passing day, becoming the boy he loved. He almost tripped before righting himself, dimpling gloriously at Sung. There was love. Love where it hadn't been before. So much love his entire body ached with it when he watched the other alien, his core going oh so bright. 

_ Sung. _ Havve warned from somewhere distant, pulling him back to center stage. Right. He was here, he was performing, he was about to miss a gods damned verse.

Take a quick breath inward, snake out his tongue, put the tube in his mouth, and bite-!

“ _ OW _ .”

Bless Meouch for still going on without so much as a pause (though maybe that was because he was a bastard who didn’t care, who knew.) For Havve still drumming on and on. He was in Sung’s head in an instant though without breaking his stride, pushing the rest of the surprise and amusement at his vocal blunder out of his core and brain.  _ What? What? _ Havve clamored, further distracting Sung.  _ What happened? What’s wrong? _

Sung shook his head and leaned away from the synthboard, blinking tears out of his eye. “Wow, sorry folks, just bit my tongue!” He announced out loud, lips curling as he tasted the blood. “Don’t worry though, I’m a doctor! I’ve handled much worse! Boredom’s got nothing on this!” And then they were laughing as a whole, what little shock and worry that had been threading through the crowd disappearing on the air just like that, leaving only one lingering, worrying thought.

_ Are you okay, Sung? _

It wasn’t Havve, but Phobos, uncertain and wary and apologetic from across the stage even though he had no reason for any of that. Sung did stupid things on stage all the time. Cartwheels and high kicks and unwarranted instrument flips that left everyone cringing in the violent aftermath. Off stage too. It was his own fault for letting himself get distracted by his boyfriend where everyone could see it, not Phobos.

Not ever him.

It probably wouldn’t have been a big deal by the end of the night if he hadn’t done it again, his teeth seeking out the same wound like clockwork, this time while he was shooting the shit with Meouch like they always did between songs. His core flickered, his mouth pulled down, and once again all there was was blood, blood, blood.

“They say.” Sung lisped around the cut in his mouth after it happened again, swilling it back with the water bottle he kept on stage. “Once is a happenstance, twice is a coincidence...” He announced after making another pained sound, feeling the universal wince as everyone realized it had happened yet again. “Three times is enemy actions.”

“You are your own worst enemy, Doc.” Meouch told him dryly, the least affected out of all of them, expression bland. “Trying to get a blood pact going on?”

“Yes, because as we all know, blood is an essential element to necromancy!” Phobos was staring after him. At him. Tunneling down. He could feel it past the swell of his pauldrons, sneaking past the shield that his pylon let him create, yawning wide and unknowable. “Which takes place All Night, Forever, you know.” Again, the room laughed as a whole, Meouch shook his head, Havve took position, and Phobos…

Phobos just watched him with his walls coming up, suddenly unreadable.

Later, after the finale, after the encore, after all the hands were shaken a second and third time and the bar had begun to close, he found Phobos outside with his helmet still on, the smell of rain on the air, the threat of fall around them. “Hey.” Sung said, the word made slow by his still tender tongue and a shots worth of liquor settling in him. “Whatchyu doin’ out here all alone?”

_‘Thinking.’_ Phobos signed at him, his hands highlighted by the light of the nearby gas station, fluttery and pink. _‘About the show.’_

Lie. Well, more like half lie. Not quite completely, but getting there. Sung pressed his teeth into the healing wound lining his tongue without thinking anything of it, toes curling as it throbbed. “We don’t get to play shows like this anymore, really.” Sung filled in in a quiet voice, taking up the spot next to him on the sidewalk. A siren wailed nearby as he waited for a response, the world spinning on lazily, unaware of them. Earth was so simple, so strange, unlike any other alien planet they had ever been to. Absolutely fascinating. “Did you hear any of them? There was this group, they remembered the last time we were here, with Booty.” The beginning of an era, they had gushed excitedly, the beginning of something great. 

He hoped the story would perk his boyfriend up and-or distract him, but Phobos only nodded, strangely sullen, withdrawn in such a way that had become unfamiliar to him. They didn’t have secrets. Didn’t have fights. Didn’t have anything but mutual trust and understanding- at least, since they had become Phobos-and-Sung, nearly two years ago. The empath was almost put off by it, but then he remembered how he had spent countless years coaxing Phobos out of silence rage and fear. Meouch too, now that he thought about it, and Havve, but neither of them were here, nor did they matter in this bubble of a moment that was just him and the Lepid Lord. Sung could handle a few minutes of it, he told himself, a couple hours if Phobos deemed it fit.

He could wait. He had. He did. He would.

A bus passed by, ugly and fluorescent and loud. Another siren hitched distantly. Sung could barely see the stars in a city like this, but they still hummed down at him. _You’re fine_, they said, _you’re fine, you’re fine._

_‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.’ _ A chink in the younger boy’s armor appeared and suddenly Sung was choking on blood that wasn’t his own, wasn’t even really real. It was memory blood, aged in regret and agony, Phobos’s heart weeping with it. _‘I thought of Deimos.’_

Not lie.

Deimos, who Phobos had left for dead when Meouch’s father attacked his planet. Deimos, whose tongue Phobos had to cut out. Who they hadn’t really spoken about since the first time Sung had taken Phobos’s hair into his hands and tied it back deftly and nimbly while the other had sorted himself out. 

_ ‘Remembering.’ Phobos had signed, his gaze distant. _

_ Sung had hummed, knowing what was coming, because he experienced it every day as well. “Yeah? Whatcha remembering?” _

_ ‘Home.’ _

Oh, to be alone. To be a last living remnant and weighted with the echoing shouted demand of your people’s legacy. They shared that pain. It had been one of the things to bring them closer together and mend their hearts as one. Sung-and-Phobos. Phobos-and-Sung. Together they were one. Sung went about touching their shoulders, knowing better than to interrupt Phobos right now. _‘Sometimes, even after everything, after all these years, it still feels like it’s my fault. Tonight made me think of that.’_ His fingers shook, and yet Sung still didn’t take them, even though he wanted to. _‘It’s stupid, I know. It’s not even comparable. But it just… hit me out of nowhere on stage, when you did it, and then it started to tear me apart.’_

Finally, Sung touched his wrists, his hands, folding them into his, bringing them to his lips and kissing them softly over and over again. A hundred times. A thousand times. A million more. This, too, was something that Sung was a master at. Kissing Phobos. Not so much as making him whole again but rather just reminding him. Love was patience, after all. And understanding. And trusting one another with the good and the bad and whatever else could be found. Once upon a time, it hadn’t been easy. They had been young in love, not in body, and unsure of how the other worked. But that had changed, and would continue to change, and once again Sung was reminded of similar differences.

“I’m sorry.” Sung apologized against his hands, a different kind of lyric than what they usually had. “It's not stupid. I understand.” There would always be what-ifs, if onlys, and buts to be posed. But there would also be the here and the now, and that much was completely undeniable. “Do you want to talk about it more?” Sung released his hands momentarily, knowing that Phobos wouldn’t speak with his helmet on.

_‘I think I’d like to kiss you, right now.’_ He saw Phobos dimple impeccably, and while it was careful and slow to show itself, it was still an undeniable joy written upon him. _‘And maybe later… we can talk...’_

Not lie. In fact hopeful, ready, grateful. It would come. There was no rush. They were growing, changing, bettering themselves.

And when Phobos pushed back his helmet just enough for Sung to cup his rosy cheeks, the empath couldn’t help but realize that kissing was a lot like using a talkbox tube. A quick breath inward, snake the tongue, tube (erm, tongue...) in mouth, and-

“Ow!” Phobos was laughing into his mouth, his tongue pulling back. “Gods, fuck!” He was bleeding again, of course, Fates would have it, coppery and insistent down his throat. 

“Never mind, no kissing for you, Doctor Sung!” Phobos delighted, pulling him in for a tight hug. Which was just as nice, if not nicer, because Sung couldn’t ever get enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I promise promise PROMISE that stellar objects is going to be updated soon  
I'm getting my groove back


End file.
